


Fix Me

by thesilverwitch (orphan_account)



Category: Marvel
Genre: Angst, Happy Ending, M/M, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-25
Updated: 2012-04-25
Packaged: 2017-11-04 07:59:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/391562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/thesilverwitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People don’t get him. They think they do, they believe he’s just a guy with crazy dreams and crazier intellect, who flew towards the sun and got burned. But he’s not. He used to be, yes, when he was still young and believed he was doing something great for the world, but things have changed a lot since those times.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fix Me

**Author's Note:**

> The Avengers just gave me a lot of feelings, and I had to something about them before they consumed my soul. This fic contains tiny spoilers for the new Avengers movie, mostly related to Bruce's story, so it probably won't ruin the movie for you if you haven't seen it yet. I suggest you only read it after seeing the movie though, because otherwise this won't be making much sense. Also this is for [Ana](http://mockinghay.tumblr.com/) because she's literally the best.

People don’t get him. They think they do, they believe he’s just a guy with crazy dreams and crazier intellect, who flew towards the sun and got burned. But he’s not. He used to be, yes, when he was still young and believed he was doing something great for the world, but things have changed a lot since those times.

More often than not though, and bless their hearts because Bruce doesn’t think he’d be able to handle them otherwise, people don’t think about him at all. They think about the monster. They dream about it and fear it with the same fear a child would have when thinking about the dark. They’re terrorized by its ugly face during their desperate nightmares. They try to come up with ways to contain it, to drive it off the face of the Earth, _to kill it_.

Thirty seven months, two weeks and three days and they still haven’t managed do to the job. They don’t give up though, restless little soldiers that they are, constantly being told they’re doing the right thing, they’re on the right mission. In all honesty, Bruce doesn’t know if they’re right or wrong – if _anyone_ is right or wrong.

One thing he knows is that fancy guns and flashy explosions are as effective on him as foam bullets. They just don’t work, nothing does. Not even attacking him while he’s still Bruce – the puny human who fidgets as he walks and fidgets when he sleeps – has any effect.

‘The other’ is just too strong. Bruce knows that as well as he knows gamma radiation and the cuts in his skin, as well as he knows the sun rises on the east and the rock beneath his feet is continually moving. He knows because he’s tried.

Nobody can judge him, honestly, nobody with half a brain and a third of a heart can even think of judging him. To say he was lonely and miserable didn’t even begin to cover it. Life was nothing. It was waking up before the sun and avoiding humanity all day, it was eating lunch on his own and trying to keep the beast within contained, it was going to a cold bed at night and silently cursing the day he was born.

He’d sent everyone he’d ever loved or even remotely cared about away. He was just too dangerous. Even on his best behavior, he was as deadly as a poisonous snake.

It got to a point where thinking hurt. Where reminding himself of who he was, of _what_ he was, of where and when he was, physically hurt. Everything hurt. Mind aching, body failing, hope fading. He was a shadow of a human being. Who had once been a promising young scientist, was now a shell of a brilliant past. He was his own permanent reminder of his biggest failure.

Nobody could judge him, and he doesn’t think anyone ever did.

Bullets are supposed to be easy. Quick and clean, one small pull and everything disappears. Like falling asleep, except for the part where you don’t wake up.

The mouth is traditional, an assured passport to the end, his chosen method for the final goodbye. He did it alone, in a wooden house in the middle of nowhere, without a rational soul present in miles. There was just him, and the cold metal against the palm of his hands.

The funny thing was, when people try to kill themselves, they’re usually thinking about it. Their failed lives flash in front of their eyes, thoughts and memories of what they were about to lose, dreams of the peace they were about to gain. This didn’t happen to Bruce. He wasn’t thinking, not a single thought thrumming inside his head as his fingers flexed subconsciously and then there was pain. Too much pain.

Nerves ripped apart, pores expanding, skin thorn, muscles expanding, organs growing, every single bone in his body broken and put together in mere seconds. Brain drowning, conscience dying, mind disappearing. Every single part of his body screamed in pain. He wished for death, and got something worse instead.

  He believes a part of him dies every single time ‘the other’ comes out. Not physically, but mentally. Part of his spirit ebbs away as blinding rage against the world takes its place. He hates it, hates the process and the consequences. But it’s not like that’s relevant or new. Bruce hates lots of things.

‘The other’ spits out the metal, creating a bullet hole on the wooden floor, and then he’s off into the woods, smashing everything in its path, creating more chaos in the world. As if there wasn’t enough of that already.

Next morning he’s cold, naked and sore. He’s as lonely as he was the night before, only a little bit more hopeless and a thousand times more clueless.

In the end, after hours and hours of thinking and asking more questions for answers he knew he’d never get, he decides to leave. Go do something decent, try to help people for a change, as he’d once dreamed of doing with his work. He’s still a doctor, he’s still one of the smartest men alive and he can still work. He would put people in danger, at least that’s what his conscience keeps telling him, but Bruce has a fairly nice control of ‘the other’ by now, and maybe, things would be alright. He doesn’t know that, but it won’t hurt him any further to pretend.

For a while, things are okay. He’s doing some good now. He’s helping, he’s acting like a normal human being amongst people, a life slowly begins to build around him where his skills are needed and he has a purpose again. He thinks he’s happy, at least as happy as he’s ever going to get, but deep inside, he’s still the same Bruce.

He’s still broken. He’s still thorn around the edges and broken in tiny, secret corners. He still has wishes of a final death, he still desires for the pain, which is constant and throbbing and it never ends – not even in his dreams – to disappear. He still asks why him, and he still cries because he’ll never know the answer. 

People now tell him it’s going to be okay. They have no idea what they’re talking about, not the smallest fucking clue, only that there’s a nice man at the end of the street, who knows various languages and how to cure their sickness. He looks sad, despite all the times they’ve thanked him with pure gratitude, he always looks sad and they wish to help in whatever way they can.

Bruce can’t decide if it’s worse or better from the time people feared him with every single fiber in their bodies, but nobody’s trying to kill him anymore, so it’s most likely better.

And then, because the possibility of Bruce ever living anything close to a normal and quiet life is preposterous, people come searching for him again. This time they’re not after the Hulk, or so they say. Bruce doesn’t know. What he does know is that the world is in danger, and adding a little more purpose to his life can’t hurt.

Everything happens too quickly. Blink an eye and you would have missed it. The Earth’s in the danger, aliens are attacking, a demigod is rampaging crazy on the streets, wannabe-heroes save the day, the Hulk comes out to play, Bruce smiles genuinely for the first time in too long.

He does good. He does better than good. He helps.

For once, nobody’s attacking him or blaming him for things that weren’t his fault. For once, people congratulate him. For once, Bruce feels like he has something real in his hands. For once, just this once, Bruce feels like maybe he shouldn’t give up yet. Maybe there’s still something out there worth fighting for.

Everybody fixes him without realizing it. As silly as it might sound, they put a patch in his heart with their words. Their confidence in him, their real belief that Bruce is something more than a monster – it’s new. It’s refreshing, it’s… brilliant.

Captain America tells him he doesn’t care about the infinite power his ego holds, even though they’re at war, and that his intellect is somehow, much more valuable. Stark tells him he’s amazing because the Hulk is part of him, not because he’s part of the Hulk. He tells him there’s a reason why he’s still alive; he isn’t scared or tiptoes his way around him like everybody else seems to. He’s honest and friendly because for some weird, idiotic reason they both understand each other, and they understand what’s it like to live with things they didn’t ask for. Natasha believes in him, believes he’s better than what people say. Believes he’s capable of doing something exceptional, like he’d once dreamed.

Fury trusts him because he’s instinct tells him so and Thor thinks he’s weird as fuck, but also very fantastic. They all give him too much credit, and then watch, as all their apparently blind trust on him pays out, and Bruce makes the world proud.

All, except for Clint. For a good part of the mission, Bruce only knows Clint as the compromised Agent Barton, and then when he isn’t so compromised, as Cupid with the pretty arrows on top of the tall building.

Only when things end, and some sort of normalcy returns to their world, does Bruce learn what Clint thinks about him.

The others fix tiny parts in him, mend the small gaps, and close old wounds. Clint though, he closes the huge, bleeding whole on Bruce’s chest, the one that used to incessantly scream he was a monster, a blind, stupid, _dangerous_ monster. He does more than anyone else ever did for Bruce. He believes, not because he has faith – like the others – that Bruce is capable doing something great, but because he knows. Because he saw, with his own two eyes, Bruce saving the whole world. And how can someone so smart, so strong and resilient and extraordinary, be ever be called monster?


End file.
